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Physical Description

The character is often seen a hairy, red monster, although in The Looney Tunes Show, he was more of an orange tone in color. His rectangular body is perched on two giant tennis shoes, and his face is composed of only two oval-shaped eyes and a wide mouth, with two hulking arms ending in dirty, clawed fingers. The monster's main trait, however, is his orange hair. In fact, a gag in the 1980 short "Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century" lampoons this by revealing that Gossamer is, in fact, composed entirely of hair.

Appearances

The director Chuck Jones introduced the monster character in the 1946 short "Hair-Raising Hare". In it, Bugs Bunny is lured to the lair of Dr. Lorre
who wants to use the rabbit for his experiments. The monster serves as the scientist's henchman, trying desperately to capture Bugs. This plot was then repeated in the 1952 Jones short "Water, Water Every Hare" (here called "Rudolph").

The monster would remain dormant for many decades until Jones used the character once more in "Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century" in 1980. This is the first cartoon where the character is called "Gossamer." Gossamer is unusual in the sense that unlike most Looney Tunes characters who were unnamed during their debut and later given their names during the classic shorts era, Gossamer was given his name years after the classic shorts era.

In recent years, Warner Bros. marketers seem to have seized upon the character. Gossamer's image is available on all sorts of Warners merchandise, from T-shirts to ballcaps to plush toys. This sort of marketing helped propel the Tasmanian Devil to newfound stardom, and it is seemingly helping Gossamer's popularity to some extent. It remains unclear whether Gossamer will become one of the more popular Looney Tunes characters.

A clip in the deleted scenes featurette on the Looney Tunes: Back in Action DVD features Gossamer being harassed by Kate Houghton, suggesting that Gossamer was planned to make an appearance in the film, but it was deleted. However, a full look at this scene is not shown in the full deleted scenes clips on the DVD-ROM.